Book Review: Sanctuary

Today's book review is Sanctuary by Mercedes Lackey.

This is the third book in the Dragon Jousters series, which started with Joust and continued with Alta.  I think it would be pretty confusing to start the series with this book; there is some review of events that happened before, but not a whole lot of background about the world.  We get a little more development of the world in this book, but most of the magic of a new world is in the previous volumes.  Characters we already know have more adventures and some development, culminating in significant events that could be the end of the series, or could mean that it's going to head off in a very different direction.  The characters are written so that they grab my attention and make me care, and, as usual in Misty's books, the world seems like a pretty attractive place, except for the specific evils that the story is about which are very nasty indeed.  But somehow the whole is less satisfying than I expect.

A fairly solid book, but not one of Lackey's better efforts.  7 out of 10.

Proposed Federal legislation a real headache

Let me start here by explaining that I have chronic congestion problems.  My nose is almost always at least partially stuffed up, I have sticky goo in my throat, and my sinuses often get stopped up so that they really hurt.  The symptoms wax and wane unpredictably, but fairly often, I need help.  Sudafed is my friend at these times.  It was readily available at grocery and convenience stores and sold at enough places that price competition kept people from gouging me if I was in need and my own supply had run out.  Life was, if not good, at least livable.

Suddenly, out of the blue, life became much more difficult when the Illinois legislature decided to pass a law that said that non-prescription medications containing pseudoephedrine had to be kept behind the counter.  Now you can only buy it in pharmacies, and even though the grocery stores I usually shop at have in-store pharmacies, the pharmacy is only open limited hours and never open when I shop for groceries.  I can no longer buy the medicine I need without making a special trip at an inconvenient time, I can only buy a small amount when I make that special trip, and of course the price I have to pay when I do make that trip has gone up a fair bit.  This is, we're told, because they want to make it harder for meth labs to get the raw material, and obviously the only way to make it illegal to sell 27 unopened cases a week to a scruffy looking guy who pay with cash is to make it illegal for me to buy a package when I do my normal grocery shopping.

But now Congress, realizing that the State legislature isn't putting enough hell into my miserable life, wants to pass their own law that would limit sales of pseudoephedrine.  They propose making me present ID and sign a log before they will sell me the pill that will tell the dwarven miners in my head it's time for a coffee break.  Thanks loads, guys.  I mean, only an unpatriotic commie terrorist would object to having to submit to a criminal background check just to buy cold medicine.  And only the most bitter of cynics would suspect that many retail outlets might be less than eager to have to have their sales personnel take the time to check IDs and collect signatures to sell cold medicine and have their managers take the time to make sure that the paperwork produced by this process was properly managed according to the 500 page manual of Federal Cold Medicine Sales Procedures that would be produced to implement this idiotic law, and would therefore just stop carrying the medicine I need at all.

I'm so happy my government is working to keep me safe.